Quadrium - Guitar Scale Theory SI Lesson

Revision as of 13:07, 15 January 2011

Introduction

Hello guys again. My name is Dogukan and this is my second SI Lesson.In this lesson i will show you the guitar scale theory. Let's begin.

Contents

Contents :

Musical notes

Scales
- definition
- overview

The Major Scale
- example 1 : C major scale
- example 2 : D major scale
- example 3 : F major scale

The Minor Scale
- Major versus Minor
- Building The Minor Scale

Musical Notes

In music, there are only 12 notes (# stands for "sharp", b stands for "flat") :

|1.A 2.A# (or Bb) 3.B 4.C 5.C# (or Db) 6.D 7.D# (or Eb) 8.E 9.F 10.F# (or Gb) 11.G 12.G# (or Ab)|

As you can see, neither B nor E have a "#" and neither C nor F have a "b".
This will become more clear when we get to the scale.

This is also called the "chromatic" scale.

Scales

Definition

A scale is the notes you use to get from one note to that same note 1 octave higher.

It can consist of as many notes of the chromatic scale as desired. Most of the times, it has 8 notes. The first one is called the "root"-note.

Example : scale of C major

|1.C (root) 2.D 3.E 4.F 5.G 6.A 7.B 8.C (root + 1 octave)|

The position numbers are also called "tones". Be sure not to confuse them with notes.

Overview

There are a lot of scales, depending on the kind of music you like to play.
You might have heard of Dorian, Phrysian,… scales. Since this is a beginners course,we'll just concentrate on the 2 most important scales which are the major and minor scale. They are in fact the foundation of today's rock music.

Before we start with the major scale, you need to know that each song is played in a certain "key".
This means the song is based upon a chord (major or minor).
Ex: a song in the key of C major, a song in the key of D minor,…

Mostly, the song even starts with that chord (and often ends with it too).

Examples :
"Nothing else matters" by Metallica is in the key of E minor "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams is in the key of D major